Industrial Engineering PhD Comp Exam Presentation - Jessica Mueller

Validating a driving simulator: The effects of simulated driving on human physiological response, scenario complexity, and individual state and trait differences:

The objective of this study is to validate human response while driving in a driving simulator to real world behavior. Driving simulators are a powerful research tool, providing nearly complete control over experimental conditions an ideal environment to quantify and study human behavior. However, participants are known to behave differently in a driving simulator than in an actual real-world scenario. By comparing driver response in a naturalistic real-world setting with driver response data measures obtained in a driving simulator, this study will be able to isolate the effects of different study variables on driving performance. If this study can show a reliable relationship between real and simulated driving, it will serve as a major step toward the validation of driving simulators as a suitable proxy for real-world driving situations.